User:Jess 148/sandbox

Aberdeen Burgh Records Project

From 1398 to the present Aberdeen has had the most complete records of any Scottish town. In July 2013, UNESCO marked the records from 1398 to 1511 as historically important to the UK.

The records are a collaboration between the University and Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives, which has been there since 2012.

Pilot Studies

2013: 'Connecting and Projecting Aberdeen's Burgh Records'

The Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, otherwise known as RIISS, funded this first study where they tested the practicalities of creating an online database, that was open to the public. The database would have the registers' text with corresponding images, but there would be a way to translate the text so that everyone could understand what it says. Fifty folios, spanning from October 1530 to March 1531, were used as the test. When discussing the 'proof of concept' exercise, they wanted a way to uncover technical solutions and the correct editorial procedures to handle it so that they could create translations that were understood. Dr Jackson Armstrong and Dr Andrew Mackillop were joint PIs of this pilot. A special section, Urban History, and issue, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, were published in connection with this study.

2013-14: A Text Analytic Approach to Rural and Urban Legal Histories

In 2014, Dr. Adam Wyner, Pl, created this new program. The program was six months long and it was supposed to add analytical tools to the already set up program that happened previously. The new pilot had a way to interpret the information on the text by making it readable and further ways to break down and understand the context. In order to do this the program had to create specific tools that related to the language, content, and structure of each of the fifty folios. The final result was a easy way to the development of Semantic Web and other data linked applications or materials. Its hope was to identify, extract legal entities, individuals, offices, events, roles and others as well as the relations between these elements.

This analysis is meant to work with legal historical issues such as the political and legal culture and authority in Burgh and Shire. It is more specifically about the management and use of natural resources.

2016-2019: Leverhulme Trust-funded project

In 2016, Dr. Jackson Armstrong became the PI of the project called LACR (Law in the Aberdeen Council Registers 1398-1511), and received funding from the Leverhulme Trust. The project set up a textual resource through an online Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) complaint transcription. These resources were taken from the Aberdeen Council Registers and were also used as a way to pull more research into the registers.

This program is found as Aberdeen Register Online (ARO) and includes many publications done by the LACR team. Publications include a collection of essays arising from the project co-edited by Dr Jackson Armstrong and Dr Edda Frankot entitled Cultures of Law in Urban Northern Europe: Scotland and its Neighbours c.1350-c.1650.

2020-23: The AHRC & DFG-funded project

The most recent project, called ‘Finance, law and the language of governmental practice in late medieval towns: Aberdeen and Augsburg in comparison’ (FLAG) was led by Dr Jackson Armstrong and Professor Dr Jörg Rogge (Mainz), who were the joint PIs of this project. This project was and continues to be funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). This grant given to the project helps continue the progress completed by the LACR online research project.

History of the Records

The burghs most earliest known date back to the reign of David I (1124-53). Each of the burghs started out under the burghs court and was open to everyone, but eventually grew to become inclusive and more complex. Only bailies would take up the court while the town council (provost, bailies and councilors) focused more on the administrative business. All of the different type of burghs brought new types of systems of government until 1833 when the Burgh Reform Act took away the corruption of self-perpetuating town councils by introducing proper elections for town councilors. Not all ways stripped away because the Royal burghs still retained certain privileges, including their own registers of sasines. However, in the 20th century even the Royal burghs lost some of their powers and functions, mostly to the county councils.

The Purpose of the Records

Maps, plans, photographs and accounts make up the documents found in the records. Originally they focused on the administrative aspect, but now there is information about Aberdeen's history as a whole. This information ranged from issues regarding the citizens, elections of office bearers and councilors; admissions of burgesses; property transfers; promulgations of regulations and prices; property and trade debts; cargoes of foreign vessels; statements regarding public health issues; rentals of burgh lands and fishing; royal missives; tax rolls; and much more.